The Crab M1

[DSLR AstroMod]

Shot a few nights back, this is only my second attempt at this target in 2yrs. I think this one came out much better!

1hr40mins total integration time in 21x5 mins subs. Darks and bias applied.

C9.25, EQ6 Syntrek, modded 450D with UHC filter.

Stacked in DSS, tweaked in PS and final nose reduction in NeatImage.

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/data/752/M1_filtered.jpg

Second image is a closer crop showing more detail.
I'd like to pull out some more colour from the core , whilst toning down the background and reducing the red, so if any of you want a bash at it feel free! :)

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/data/752/M1_filtered-CROP.jpg

[Catanonia]

Mate, it is a bit on the red side and this is loosing a lot of the detail in the nebula.

Also the focus seems a bit off as well.

Remember that if you have your modded 450 without a replacement IR filter such as a baader you will have these problems. Too much red and just off focusing.

Other than that, I had a go and there is some nice detail in the picture and definately something to work with.

Jealous as this target is too low for my location.

[DSLR AstroMod]

Funny you should say that, in fact I thought my focus was better than usual as I now use the Bahtinov mask along with liveview and then preview to attain good focus.
My tracking was also rather good as is witnessed by the round stars.

I did use a v slight Gaussian blur and NeatImage noise reduction , so this is what you may believe is causing the slightly soft look.

I take all critique on board, so thanks for your reply.

[Catanonia]

Funny you should say that, in fact I thought my focus was better than usual as I now use the Bahtinov mask along with liveview and then preview to attain good focus.
My tracking was also rather good as is witnessed by the round stars.

I did use a v slight Gaussian blur and NeatImage noise reduction , so this is what you may believe is causing the slightly soft look.

I take all critique on board, so thanks for your reply.

No worries mate, looking at the picture just to me the focusing looks off, perhaps the noise reduction added to it, but not that much.

Tracking looks bang on as you said with nice round stars.

When I balance out the red of a picture I use photoshop and go to levels. Select red and put the mid point slider in the center of the histogram of the red channel. I then repeat for green and blue and manually balance that way. After saving changes, I then open levels and balance the total for lightness.

Auto balance sometime works, but most times screws the image.

[Jeff]

Very nice shot! On my to do list if the weather ever clears up.

[jmx]

Neat shot. If I ever get this newtonian up and running this guy is on my list.

Have you thought about reprocessing the data for stars and star color, and then blending that layer in (as a color channel only) over the star field area only so that your stars look right? I think it'd go a long way in improving the final results.

[Pricey]

Very nice. Have not seen this before. Tell me, how do you do the 5 min shots? Bulb mode? Just that I tried Bulb and got nothing but darkness and a few dim stars. Nothing against Tv 30/s.

[VIGER]

Cool. Not an easy one.

[Nighthound]

Outstanding work Kevin. Don't be afraid to tolerate some noise for the sake of preserving detail, a certain level is essential for definition in all digital images. It's a fine line but I personally much prefer a slightly noisy and detailed image to a smooth and detail-lacking image. You've captured some very nice detail on a very small object. Great work.

[DSLR AstroMod]

Thank you all for your positive feedback folks, makes my work all the more satisfying :)




Have you thought about reprocessing the data for stars and star color, and then blending that layer in (as a color channel only) over the star field area only so that your stars look right? I think it'd go a long way in improving the final results.

jmx, do you have a quick guide or tutorial to achieving this.
I am struggling with layers and masking i.e blending in a natural starry background with processed image on another layer. My biggest bugbear and sticking point right now in my post processing of images!

[troypiggo]

Very nice. Must put this one on my "to do" list.

[jmx]

jmx, do you have a quick guide or tutorial to achieving this.
I am struggling with layers and masking i.e blending in a natural starry background with processed image on another layer. My biggest bugbear and sticking point right now in my post processing of images!

Hrm, I'm sure there's tutorials out there for photoshop layers. It's something you'll have to learn over many years. I think I've been using photoshop since version 3 back in the mid 1990's.

So what I do is:
1) Process the image so the nebula looks great
2) Then, using the original unprocessed source image, I reprocess again so that stars look ok. I will up the saturation so the stars have some color, or you can use Noels "increase star color" action if you wish.
3) then, under the "select" pulldown menu, you can do "select color range". Your cursor will turn into an eye dropper, and you want to click on a bright star somewhere in your scene, up the "fuzziness" to something pretty high so you can see all the bright areas selected. Hit ok.
4) Now do Select->modify->feather to make the star selection a little softer. I use 1 or 2 pixels of feather radius.
5) Now, do Edit->copy. This will copy the bright parts of the scene (mostly stars) into the clip board. Create a new layer in your layers panel ON YOUR NEBULA IMAGE (not the star image), and do Edit->Paste.
6) Now your nebula image should have colorful stars pasted on top, and you want to change that layers blend mode to "color". That part is up to you, but what it means is it'll use the luminosity channel from the underlying image, but the COLOR of that luminosity comes from this new layer on top.
7) Assuming some nebula got caught up in this new layer, take your eraser and erase any nebula coloring that may have been tainted by this new layer.

If some of this doesnt make sense, it could be you need to just keep learning and playing with layers and masks. Its the core of everything. Or it could be that I described it wrong because I'm on painkillers right now (all 4 wisdom teeth + 1 bonus tooth out this morning. wheeeee!).

[DSLR AstroMod]

Ta jmx, will give your process a twirl as soon as time allows!

[Celestron]

I don't know how i missed this one but it's a great shot !